Shoes
by Don'ttellmybrotherIwrotethis
Summary: The NPCs pay the price for Miriam's fashion sense. Weapon spoilers.
1. Toy Shoes

Johannes was welcomed by the survivors of the village despite being an alchemist mostly because, as Dominique put it, he seemed to have more common sense than the rest of the Alchemic Guild put together. He had this reputation even before the alchemists decided, 'Yeah, let's summon a demon army by sacrificing little kids.'

This was a low bar for friendship but he has the additional quality of being a friendly guy worried about the well-being of other people. He tried to consider the effect of his actions on other people but had slipped up spectacularly yesterday.

"JOHANNES." The man dropped his book as Dominique stormed in and grabbed his ponytail. "Why on earth did you create that monster?" Dominique was unusually irate compared to her normal calm demeanor but of course she snapped first. Susie was hard of hearing and the little girl at the counter was a little jealous of Miriam's new weapons. The woman directly upstairs was so busy cackling about revenge to herself she either did not notice or did not care. Lindsay was already a little off the deep end, and the offending objects had been used as tools of vengeance. Harry didn't see Miriam as often and he was oblivious enough to ignore his flaming house while he farmed.

"Miriam needed supplies and better equipment, I mean she has been fighting in there for everyone and I thought it would make her happy to see them! I'm working on getting her something to replace them but she likes the aesthetics of the da-" Johannes stopped and froze. Dominique froze too as the monster which Johannes had created could be heard in the corridors.

_Squeaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueak_

"Oh, is she headed to my shop? I should get over there." Dominique said as she let go of Johannes' hair.

Johannes breathed a sigh of relief and hoped Miriam had the cash or the materials for a new pair of shoes. He had thought the Toy Shoes were a good idea to make. He had only himself to blame. _I only thought about if I could and really didn't think if I should. I guess I am a hypocrite... _The alchemist and the shop owner both straightened up and smiled as Miriam came into the room.

_Squeaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueak_

Miriam had not seen Dominique in Johannes' makeshift workshop before. She said, "Good evening, were you two discussing something?"

"No, nothing much. Dominique and I were wondering if perhaps we could get you some better weapons!"

Dominique decided to help get rid of the dreaded squeakers. "If I have materials you need I'll give you a one time discount. The Toy Shoes can't be that effective, can they? Actually, I'll pay you full price if you sell them to me." Johannes silently prays as Miriam seems to perk up at the offer. His hopes were dashed, however, by the next words which Miriam spoke.

"Actually, Miss Anne asked if she could have them after I'm done. I'll use the old pair for making the bunny ones but I noticed you have a pair of toy shoes in stock at the store? It would be nice to give Anne shoes that aren't covered in demon blood..."

Dominique was unable to disguise her look of terror. Johannes was unable to decide if he should be annoyed or amused at the exorcist's hypocrisy/stupidity.

* * *

Note: Toy shoes are wonderful. Fixed a particularly bad spelling error.


	2. Steam Boots?

**The first bit isn't too spoilery but later I beat the game and added some stuff to the end. Please be warned you should complete the game or scroll carefully when reading this. I was going to leave things as it was but decided to heck with quality.**

**BIG SPOILERS LATER.**

* * *

"Two-hundred gold for just a small potion? You only paid me 20 gold for the potion I just gave you!"

Dominique was unfazed by Johannes' outburst at the injustice. "Potions are worth more than their weight in gold. They save lives and this other stuff was not easy to get into stock. I need gold to get more. We cannot let ourselves run out at a crucial moment."

Johannes sighed. What really irked the man was how little Dominique paid him for the vial. It wasn't like she was sharing more with the villagers either. He had been toiling away at alchemy trying to improve the spell which kept Miriam alive by slowing the Magicrystal spread. At the same time, work on more short term things which would keep Miriam alive like armor and getting rid of this otherworldly castle occupied the rest of the time on his hands. He had totally forgotten to eat at times even after being so malnourished from the journey here. He'd passed out standing up. Dominique and Anna suggested he take a ten minute break and eat a bit of rice. Johannes had taken a walk outside and gone out the wrong door. He tripped over a melted bone Miriam forgot to pick up, then got attacked by a rat.

On the bright side, he had materials now. On the downside, he was only now realizing how much price gouging was going on in this town. The potion he could understand but he was shocked by just how little Miriam was getting in exchanges. No wonder she was always coming back on supply runs and asking about the value of every little thing she could craft.

"I guess it makes sense. Getting supplies here is difficult and when we are cut off from the church's resources... I trust you are making sure to stock things Miriam needs like- Is that a tea dress?" Why on earth did Dominique put so much effort into having tea dresses in stock?

Dominique shrugged, "Remember, you made the one for her out of cotton and rags? I thought it would be a good idea to have more in stock." Johannes looked at the more substantial armor on display and narrowed his eyes.

_Wait just a minute. She already has a tea dress and it does nothing for protecting against demon claws. Why not let Miriam have stuff on credit if it is already here? It would be easier for her to bring stuff to Dominique for trade if she has to spend less time coming back with wounds._ Miriam was an honest soul. It wouldn't matter being in debt if everyone was devoured by demons. Dominique might need less gold if her store savvy was more on par with her exorcism skills. This was, in Johannes' humble opinion, gross incompetence. He might say it was malicious exploitation if he didn't owe so much to Dominique's past generosity.

He spent a good chunk of time trying to explain economics to the unrelenting shopkeeper, then retreated from the losing battle. His time was better spent on research to help Miriam. An hour later when Miriam returned from her latest foray, Johannes asked how she funded things. Johannes was startled by how much a shard would go for compared to everything else she sold to Dominique. Shards were worthless after purification. There was no way Dominique was that isolated from church resources if 'Summon Bat' could get that much off the cheapskate.

He felt no guilt about the shoes when he saw the next set of equipment recipes Miriam brought. He could have fixed the obvious problem but then he thought of the 200G price tag on a small bag of flour. Pettiness won out and Johannes looked at the rat teeth which his ill-fated foray had brought to hand. Today he would prove he was truly the worst hypocrite to walk Arantville.

First, he had to establish plausible deniability.

* * *

Dominique was examining her ledger when she heard a rhythmic sound approaching. The timing of the clanking was far too perfectly synced to what Miriam would normally have made in the way of footsteps.

_Clankclankclankclankclankclankclankclankclankclankclankclankclank_

Miriam walked into the room wearing her new weapons on her feet. Great big clumsy metal inelegant ones. She seemed pleased to have new footwear. "Good evening! I was hoping to buy more corn seed and bread today."

Dominique managed to not grit her teeth. "Why, coming right up! Why don't you switch shoes in town? Those cannot be too comfortable and must also alert a lot of demons to your presence..." Dominique was not going to panic. This she could handle. It wasn't the Toy Shoes.

"Well... It actually doesn't make much of a difference really, the demons already seem to sense me no matter what I do. The clanking is annoying and I had to really ask Johannes before he made me these as he was worried about stealth too. In fact, he is working on a modification to them to make them less noisy." Miriam handed over gold coins as Dominique relaxed a little bit.

"Does he need something for the alchemic modification?," Dominique crossed her fingers. She didn't dare try saying a prayer for this but she hoped the alchemist knew what was coming should he not be able to fix this.

"Oh no, Johannes said he has some materials on hand already. He just needed a little time and some cotton. I'm going to go check about finding a better way across the cathedral while I wait."

Dominique waited for the clanking to fade out of earshot before stomping to the other side of the hall. Johannes explained he didn't know they would be that loud. He showed him the alchemy transformation to muffle the sound it made. Dominique inspected the paper with a smile before leaving Johannes to his work. She had her own things to do and his explanation seemed to indicate he knew what he was doing.

* * *

_Clankclankclankclankclankclankclankclankclankclankclankclankclank_

Dominique hid her journal and stood up. She listened to the sound stomp into the workshop. Things went quiet for a while and she let out a sigh of relief as Miriam left with normal sounding footsteps.

She might not have relaxed if she'd seen the malicious grin on Johannes' face after he was alone. Plausible deniability was established now and things were set. The powdered rat teeth were not all consumed. He swept the rest into a pouch, just in case he found another use for it.

* * *

Dominique was having a good day. She'd managed to sabotage Anna's shoes last night and the world was a squeak-free place once again. She set about opening a crate of supplies and was prying it open when-

_Squeaksqueak_

Dominique looked at the prybar, then back to the crate. She went back to finish the opening but-

_Squeaksqueaksqueak__squeaksqueak__squeaksqueak__squeaksqueak__squeaksqueak_

That was not the box. Miriam came through the door in her Steam Boots. They should not have been making that noise. The adorable squeak was completely incongruous with the boots. What was going on!?

"Dominique! Anna! My shoes started squeaking for some reason. Isn't this great?! I think Johannes' transmutation partially failed when I was swimming!"

The exorcist racked her brain while Anna and Miriam happily chatted. Dominique came up with something and coughed to grab attention, "This is bad news. Would you like a normal pair? I've got the Steam Boots in stock if you would like ones that aren't broken."

"Oh don't worry! They still do the same amount of damage as before! In fact, I asked Johannes if he can do this to all of my shoes. Unfortunately, he doesn't think he can replicate the effect so I'm going to have to leave these behind when I get better ones."

* * *

**Much later when BIG SPOILERS happened...**

* * *

Dominique waited. Her plan had worked! There was no way Miriam could get here without catching Gremory. This was a shame since she wouldn't get to rub victory in the naive girl's face.

Dominique heard something.

Dominique heard approaching judgement for her sins.

In fact, judgement sounded like this:

_Squeaksqueaksqueak__squeaksqueak__squeaksqueak_

She didn't bother with the pre-final-boss gloating but screeched, "JOHANNES YOU [Bleeping] WITH A BUCKET OF [bleeping] [Mickey Mouse]!"


End file.
